Markets change. There’s a fallacy that you should judge a game separate from its price, for the most part, because prices fluctuate, shift and have a tendency towards the cheaper. So even if a game isn’t worthwhile at the release price, it’s might be a sale or two from now. The Elder Scrolls Online is not one of those games, because it’s a subscription MMO. It’s a subscription MMO in 2014, and it feels like it missed the boat by about half a decade.

There’s nothing egregious here. No grand failure of game design that means that TESO is rendered an affront to the other MMOs out there, and after playing it for around fifteen hours there hasn’t been any major red flags in the actual experience of playing. But an MMO, more than any other game, has to stand out from the pack to even exist, let alone ask for a sizeable amount of money from your bank account each month.

When TESO was announced there was no small level of confusion at the concept. The Elder Scrolls games have always been an extremely insular experience, casting you as a lone wanderer through the various lands of Tamriel, flitting from town to town scooping up anything with a physics value from tables and shelves, and completing quests. They’re games about immersing yourself in a world more than anything else, and feeling like you can see somewhere on the horizon and then go to that place.

In theory, you could create an MMO that evokes the same sense of adventure and wonder. You wouldn’t necessarily have to swing fully into EVE territory, where there is no overt structure beyond what the players themselves impose, but freedom would certainly have to be a primary tenant. And to be fair to TESO, there has been a cursory attempt at providing that, but the way it’s funnelled makes it feel less like you have the freedom to go anywhere than just giving you a checklist that is geographically linked.

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As with all Elder Scrolls games, you start off a prisoner. There’s some guff about the world being in great danger, and the usual lacklustre setup for an inconsequential main storyline, and then you’re cast adrift, to wash up on the shores of one of three starting hubs, dependent on the alliance and race you chose during character creation.

From there, you do have some small degree of freedom. All three starting areas are small towns, and there is at least one large quest chain in each that proliferates through the entire starting island, taking you from location to location in a surprisingly cohesive manner for an MMO questline. But again, this just makes you feel a little more curtailed in what you’re doing, and a little less autonomous.

Compounded onto that is the abundance of other players constantly reminding you of just how small the world feels, and how little avenue you have to go exploring. You /can/ explore, but you’re barely rewarded for it, beyond finding a few more quest givers and maybe, if you have the right treasure map, some loot for your trouble.

Elder Scrolls games have always managed to fill the world without overstuffing it, rewarding exploration without meaning you are constantly stumbling over useless detritus every five steps. I’m not sure whether it’s due to the limitations inherent in creating a massively multiplayer game or just due to the nature of the genre, but TESO doesn’t compel you to explore. To be frank, it doesn’t really compel you to do much.

Perhaps it’s unfair to judge it against the previous games in the series, as it’s a departure in both genre and scope. However, even if you judge it up against other MMOs, there are still many ways it falls short.

The skill system, for instance, seems at first like it’s offering the freedom the geography of TESO cannot. You pick a class, which then immediately splinters off into three disciplines, each with a different focus. You pick up skills from those, and also from the weapons you’re using, the armour you’re wearing, and even the guilds you join. In theory, you could create anything from a battle-mage hurling lightning bolts while wearing full plate and wielding a massive axe, to a warrior-priest harnessing the power of a restorative staff while chucking big boulders at bad guys.

In practice, though, these combinations are so woefully unoptimised to be relegated to a ‘joke’ build. You have some avenue for expression, but it’s curtailed by the inherent synergy that TESO is trying to gear you towards. This even extends to your race choice, with each having an affinity that you’d be derided by other players for ignoring. Argonians are good with healing spells, Redguard get bonuses for using sword and shield. It’s the illusion of choice when, again, you’re just funnelled down into optimal play.

There was a point, at about six hours into playing, where I was flailing about for something to hold my interest. One small thing to perhaps inject some life into the experience and allow me to at least recommend it to die-hard Elder Scrolls fans, as they’re surely the main audience for this, the kind of person who would be willing to pay a subscription fee to lose themselves in this world they’ve spent so much time in for hundreds of hours on end.

But my eyes kept on fixing on the horizon, and the pervasive fog that makes even close buildings vague and immaterial. It’s trivial, but I think TESO’s gravest misstep is the claustrophobic draw distance. I remember Skyrim, hell, I remember World of Warcraft for the first time, and my memory fixes on the moment you’re first allowed to step into the wider world, and you see this incredible view, thrilled by the knowledge of your freedom to explore it all.

The Elder Scrolls Online doesn’t just hem you in with a draw distance, but it hems you in with just the availability of places to explore. Everywhere is an island, and everywhere is small, cramped, and rammed with so many inconsequential activities that nothing feels like an adventure, or even of passing interest. From what I’ve played, it’s mediocrity distilled down into the kind of leave-your-brain-at-the-door MMO that will pass the time without giving you much more than a vague sense of accomplishment that passes like a hangover. You could lose yourself here, if you really needed something to sink your time into, but there are more engaging time sinks out there.